Signs of Life on Planet Spinelli
by Ku-chyan
Summary: He could give her tonight, if that’s what she wanted. But if she’s looking for forever all she had to do was say the word. --Spinelli/Maxie--
1. The Sea Has No Rest

**So….felt like writing some Spixie…um, this is supposed to be a three parter but, you know, most of the time I never get past part one. Un-betaed, please point out any mistakes you see.

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**Signs of Life on Planet Spinelli  
**Part One: **The Sea Has No Rest  
**Spinelli/Maxie

_Love is like water; We can fall in it. We can drown in it. And we can't live with out it.  
--Unknown

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He could give her tonight, if that's what she wanted. But if she's looking for forever all she had to do was say the word.

She's made for him. Or him for her. His hands on her hips and his mouth against her collar are like puzzle pieces, and not the kind you lick and force into place. Their shapes are corresponding or complimentary or whatever geometric term his mind was too preoccupied to think about. The point is, they fit.

She curls her leg over the back of his thighs. The palm of his hand slides against her spine. He holds her up while she arches and she's the only thing keeping him on earth. She is so monumentally beautiful, sweaty and panting and messy, that it almost hurts to look. But he can't take his eyes from her form, and he knows he will never, never, never see anything quite like her beneath him.

Spinelli catches the breath from her mouth like it's the only thing he can breathe. She cries _Spinelli _in a way that overheats him and he can't imagine calling her anything other than _Maxie_. Not now, like this, when he's lucky to even find the coherency to utter those two syllables. And utter them he does, as half-formed sounds against her neck, noiseless mouthing against her cheek. Maxie's nails scratch his midriff in a way he can only hope leaves marks, physical reminders to match the memory he knows he'll never forget.

The veins on her arms are a map to everything he didn't know was missing from his life. Her eyes flutter and he thinks, _forget butterflies_, she's just caused a tsunami somewhere across the world. The strands of blonde locks he touches with his fingertips are magical, oh Maxie, let down your golden hair.

In the dark of the penthouse, his heart threatens to explode. He wants to tell her all the words he knows but cannot articulate, but she pulls away with a sigh and his lips are good for nothing more than another kiss. In the heavy night of Port Charles, Maxie dreams in his bed and all the exhaustion of his body is not enough to force his eyes closed when he has such a beautiful thing to look at.

Fifty years from now he wants to be able to pause and think and remember exactly what he'd seen that first made him feel like _this_. Her face in the shadow of his room, her skin against his comforter. Her eyelashes and the curve of her nose and the steady rise and fall of her chest. He marvels at the glorious being within his grasp and wonders how he could have waited his entire life for something without even knowing how much he yearned for it. Or maybe he's only just started, now that he's realized such a thing exists.

When the barest tips of morning touch the horizon, he drifts away into sleep.

And when he opens his eyes, every muscle in his body seems to be screaming. The bed beside him is cold and empty and Maxie-less and the back of his eyes prickle. _Maxie, Maxie, Maxie_ he thinks, that's all he thinks. He will never get enough. His tongue against the roof of his mouth tastes like her. The pillows bunch against his neck like the curl of her knuckles, the sheets against his calves like the arch of her foot. _Maxie, Maxie, Maxie._

This, he knows, is the first day he's in love with Maxie Jones. Before, that was something, but not this. The other side of the bed has gotten cold and the imprint of her is gone, but he closes his eyes and sees her clearly—Maxie, beside him, with him. She's left him nothing of that night but pink lines on his flesh and a crystal clear image in his head and want, but he knows beggars can't be choosers.

There's no glass slipper left behind or a lock of hair for posterity's sake. He drags himself out of bed when the sun is blazing over Port Charles and debates putting on his old clothes just because she touched them. The place her hands have been burn like prints on his skin. The places her lips have brushed are like fire inside him. Every piece of him feels like it thrums only for her touch. Only because of her touch. What was his life before her?

"What's the matter with you?" Jason asks him shortly, intense eyes peering over paperwork. How can Spinelli explain to him that nothing and everything is wrong and perfect and the world is such a different place today that he's found himself a new purpose and god he doesn't even know what to do? Jason's known love and lost it and gained it again. But, Spinelli knows, nothing in Jason's life could have made him feel like this. What word of advice could the master have for his grasshopper on the subject of loving the perfect, wounded Maxie Jones?

So Spinelli tells him "Today is the first day of the rest of my life" which is true and cliché and not at all the answer to Jason's question. But the enforcer lets it go, just like Spinelli knew he would.

He sees her blue eyes while he sips his first orange soda of the day. The flowers in Kelly's today are bright and pink and very much the same shade as her nails those few hours ago. He stares at the screen of his laptop, cursing the fact that there was ever a time he purposefully pushed her away. There's a ghostly feeling of her hand on his shoulder, her gaze intent on his face. But the chair across from him is obviously, tellingly empty.

He dials the number of her cell twice and sits alone until Mike tells him it's time to leave. This, he knows, is not a good beginning, but it's too late for him to stop.


	2. The Stars Have No Number

**First off, thanks for all the fab reviews. No seriously, they were fab. How else could I describe them? Totally psyched me out. And guilted me into actually making another chapter. Unfortunately, it's very…blah. I suddenly remembered why I stick to one chaptered things. Because after the first one they always suck. This isn't as flowly and it isn't as nice to look at it. But, well, here it is.**

**Un-betaed. Please point out any mistakes. I'll have you know I **_**almost**_** posted it with a huge one of GH-writers' quality, but caught myself. **

**Signs of Life on Planet Spinelli**  
Part Two: The Stars Have No Number  
Spinelli/Maxie

_We had just one night but it lingers on and on and on---  
You Gave Your Love To Me Softly, Weezer _

Maxie is as merciless and marvelous and beautiful as ever. As always. God, his throat gets dry when he looks at her. Something grabs his heart with an iron grip each time she takes a breath.

He want her to be the Cortana to his Chief, the Shadowcat to his Colossus, the Harlequin to his Joker, if need be. But now it seems more like she's the holy grail just beyond his reach. When Meteor Maxie entered his life in a blaze of snark and grace, there was no way she could have known just how badly she'd rip his atmosphere to shreds. He is just a humble ant, one of millions, and she is the majestic rainforest in which he resides.

Today she is looking extra poised, hair pinned and curled and face lightly colored. He stares into her explosive eyes, fire in his veins, while her pretty lips, the ones that fit so perfectly against his own, brought noise to an otherwise soundless universe.

The space between them is laughable. Spinelli knows if he moved just a few muscles, lifted an arm, took just one step, he could feel her. If he just leaned forward he could smell the perfume on her neck, the lingering shampoo in her hair. If he moved his hand and curled his fingers he could hold her wrist, so small and pale. If he held her chin and tilted her head he could kiss her, right here and now, for all to see. But somehow that space between them is heavy and halting, and he can do nothing more than look.

He can't see her the way he used to. Before she was always the Bad Blonde One, the Hostile One, the Wounded Blonde One. But now he looks at her and he can only see Maxie, the scared girl he'd comforted late into the night, who'd eased his loneliness as he'd eased hers. He sees all the things he never noticed about her, the sharp lines of her eyebrows and the dips of her cheeks, the patch of freckles across her shoulders that show when she turns just so. His eyes were caught on the smooth way she swayed when she walked, and how she propped her hand on her hips like she knew all the 

mysteries of the world. She was like a vision he'd seen every night in his dreams for years and years but had only just been able to remember upon waking.

"I'm not saying it was a mistake." She says, all vulnerable eyes and that rare soft look, even though that's exactly what she's saying. The world around them is vague and completely unimportant. All Spinelli knows is Maxie before him and the _oh god I'm going to be sick_ feeling in his stomach.

And all he can think is that it hasn't even been two days since he had her. The earth had not even completed two rotations in the time since he'd held her to his body and discovered that elusive feeling that so many longed for. But each hour had been an eternity for him to wait and long and wish and set himself up for the horrible blow of rejection.

No matter what kind of words Maxie tried to shape it with, it still knocked into him with an unbelievable force. His chest tightened and his eyes burned and he very, very much wanted to run away and hide. He hadn't thought so much of the future as the past, but it hurt, hurt, hurt to think she didn't want to be in it.

Kelly's seemed like a much more welcoming, beautiful place when she was in it, even when she said those painful clichés like "I hope we can still be friends."

Spinelli cleared his throat awkwardly. Was it true that they had formed a strange camaraderie, a partnership between two distinctly different souls that had somehow worked? He thought of the times he'd sought her advice as she's subtly looked for his comfort, of the times he'd gratefully received her belief in him while assuring her that he still held faith in her goodness.

If they hadn't been friends, they had definitely been something. But Spinelli wasn't sure he could just go back to that.

"Of-of course." Spinelli forced out, feeling the world fall apart around him. "The Wounded Blonde One is one of the Jackal's most trusted companions."

Maxie's face glowed at him. The corners of her eyes wrinkled and her lips formed a smile. For him. And it was the most heartbreaking experience of his life.

She is trying to hand him back his heart. His mind, body, and soul. But in that short amount of time since it had left him, he had forgotten how to grasp it. However he thought this worked, this rejection, there was no way he could have prepared for it. What cruel being in the universe would give him a glimpse of such a perfect thing and then rip it away from him? 

He won't blame Maxie for this. What they did that night was a mutual action, a mutual seeking of comfort and affection and ease from loneliness. It wasn't her fault that his heart had clicked and filled it's empty spaces with a want for her. 

He was suddenly in love with Maxie Jones, and wasn't it just his luck that she didn't feel the same?


	3. Love Has No Uttermost

**This stupid crap story is pissing me off. Seriously, if this thing were slightly more tangible I would punch it in the face. I hate this story, do you understand? It makes me want to cause physical pain to something. Especially this particular part---which **_**yes**_** is actually shorter than the other two making it monumentally short---that makes me pull my hair and say bad words—but at least its finished and I can wash my hands of it. The end.**

**P.S.—thank you to all the people who left such nice reviews. **

**Oh yeah, still not beta-ed. And believe me, it needs one, there are parts of this that don't sound right. I know, I thought about them, don't want to think about them any more. Please point out mistakes, of course!**

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**Signs of Life on Planet Spinelli**  
Part Three: Love Has No Uttermost  
Spinelli/Maxie

_But love has no uttermost, as the stars have no number and the sea no rest. --Eleanor Farjeon_

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This Makeshift Maxie is not who he desires. She leans close to him, flutters her eyelashes, and laughs shrilly and falsely at his murmurs of speech. Her hair is not quite the right shade of gold and her eyes are not quite the right blue, but he lets her lean drunkenly against him because _not quite_ is better than _not at all_. The Jackal will not let it go any farther, but it's nice to imagine for a while that the warmth against his side is her. He is, after all, just a man.

A man so terribly, terribly in love. His mind is fuzzed with drink and drugs and maddening want. Oh how the mighty Ace has fallen, he thinks, while the girl eventually slides away from him on a search for greener and more attentive pastures. Spinelli licks the rim of his glass and tries not to cry. He'd never seen the merit before, the use of the endeavors men went though to lose themselves. Until now.

The smoke in this bar takes the shape of her form, all soft curves and harsh lines. He hears her in the steady beat that thrums through the air. "Maxie," he tells the bushy barkeep, eyes distant, "She's the most beautiful girl in the world."

"Spinelli?" a large hand clasped his shoulder, rousing him from his thoughts. Spinelli, heavy tongued and bleary minded, pulled off the magnificent and notable feat of turning his seat without falling to the floor. Of course, the pair of hands that held him steady as he dipped sideways may have had something to do with that.

"St-Stone Cold." He slurred, pausing to hiccup. "What brings you to this den of-of…" Trailing off, he tried to think of the right word.

"Spinelli." Jason sighed again. He pried the empty shot glass out of the drunk's clumsy hands. "Coleman called me. Said you were down here depressing the other customers. What's the matter with you?"

Peering up at his mentor through a messy fringe of hair, messy because that's just how it was without her around to fix it, Spinelli wondered what wasn't the matter with him. He was a compulsive geek with the social graces of a dog and a heart that yearned for things it couldn't have. One Jones sister had loved him—he knew this and it bit at his heart, a viscous thing, a regret he would never let go . That he'd missed it, _how stupid_, and now this must be his punishment. It kills him to think maybe Georgie, Sweet and Loyal and Wise Georgie, had felt anything remotely like this, like he did, so lost and hopeless and pained and starving.

Jason talks to him like he's some three year old, a stupid one, incompetent, while he leads him out of the bar. Spinelli doesn't want to go, doesn't want to leave this place of promised forgetfulness, but he tags along anyway.

He thinks maybe he could have handled it if she'd gone to Logan. The Crabby Commando, that unappreciative women-beater who didn't deserve anything. Or maybe, through some weird twists he couldn't even imagine in his current state of mind, if she'd ended up with Johnny even. Better the devil you know, after all. But that—that waste, that guy who'd come out of nowhere and spent his time draped in Maxie's shadow, he infuriated Spinelli. He was nothing_, nothing_, and even though Spinelli knew it didn't mean anything to Maxie, it still hurt that she'd rather warm her side with that thing than—than her faithful companion, the Jackal.

"This is about Maxie." The enforcer said, leading him down the cold, cold, nighttime streets of Port Charles. It was an absolutely brilliant deduction.

"Everything." Spinelli told him solemnly, stumbling over air. "Everything is about Maxie."

The world as he knew it—not the world as he'd _known_ it, which no longer existed—revolved around Maxie Jones. Around not having her and wanting her and watching her and wondering why he wasn't quite good enough. Blaming himself for not being happy that she considered him a friend, blaming the whole universe that he wasn't worth more. Damian Spinelli—cursed to long and lose.

The grim light from the streetlamp reminded him of something—a dark, foggy fantasy. Maxie against him on her own violation, even if it hadn't really counted. Spinelli choked, throat suddenly tight, and yanked away from Jason. "I can't." he said thickly, grabbing the pole for support.

Jason just looked at him. Maybe, in another time, Spinelli would have been warmed and honored to see the shimmer of concern in his eyes. "Spinelli-what? What's the matter?"

"Me." Spinelli pressed his sleeves into his eyes. "She doesn't love me."

And what, _what_ could his master, Stone Cold, the unbeatable force of wisdom and courage and all things good in a world of evil—what could he possibly do?

"It'll get better, Spinelli." Jason told him, flat and blunt and the only familiar thing left in this new world. "It'll take a while, maybe a long time. But you'll get over it."

Spinelli thinks _I cannot possibly love her any more than this_. And yet with each passing second, he falls further.


End file.
